


My Mum Asked About You Again

by Cruel_Irony



Series: Tumblr Promts [1]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Crack, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Meet the Family, Minor Violence, Mother-Son Relationship, Past Relationship(s), i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cruel_Irony/pseuds/Cruel_Irony
Summary: For a Tumblr prompt, No 19 "My mum asked about you again", a two-part Jarry story.Part One: Marnie NightingalePart Two: Tessie Thompson





	1. Marnie Nightingale

“My mother asked about you again.” James saunters up to the bar at the Loft and slumps onto a barstool. Immediately, Harry serves him a Buck’s Fizz - his usual for ten o’clock in the morning, a smirk playing on his lips. “It’s getting rather tedious. Harry this, Harry that. Look how wonderful Harry is.”

“I can’t help it if Marnie finds me irresistible.”

“Yes, but you could tell her to back off. I’m sure she’d listen to you.” James reaches for his wallet, but Harry waves him off. “We’re just friends. Which also means I pay for my drinks.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Very well. That’ll be ten pounds, please.”

“Ten pounds?” He hands over the note anyway.

“I don’t make the prices. Talk to Grace if you have a problem. So, did you just come here to complain about me being Marnie’s favourite, or is there something else?”

James sighs and drains his glass dry. “I just don’t get it. She’s never really approved of any of my partners. John Paul, Kyle, she hated everyone — she didn’t even like you a few months ago. What changed?”

Harry shifts awkwardly and breaks eye contact. Suddenly, the dirty glass in hand seems more important.

“If there’s something you’re not telling me, I deserve to know.” James leans over the bar and takes hold of Harry’s hands. “One minute she can’t stop telling me about how immature and selfish you are, the next she’s singing your praises to anyone who’ll hear. What changed?”

“I might have… just a tiny, teensy, little bit… attacked your dad.” Harry makes a wincing face, like he expects James to blow up and start shouting. But the older man freezes, his mind coming to terms with his ex-lover getting into a fight with his abusive, homophobic father, and still being alive. “James?”

“You attacked my father? What? Are you okay? How are you even walking right now? And, why? What could possibly have possessed you?”

“Stop with the twenty questions already. It wasn’t a physical attack - I’m not stupid. Though I admit I really wanted to deck him. I just… he was at the bar when I was on shift, and the place was pretty quiet. He thought he could antagonise me, get me to do something stupid - like punch him - in public. But instead, I… hedged my bets?” Harry finishes unsurely.

“What do you, hedge your bets? What did you do?”

“I might have made a pass at him.”

James splutters on his replacement drink, spitting orange juice and champagne on his trousers. “I do hope I misheard.”

“Nope. He suggested that I’d do anything for a tenner and that it was the only way you could ever get laid, by paying me, and I got confident all of a sudden. Pulled out a few of my old tricks. You know, the sexy voice, a few light touches, some whispered words in his ear.”

“That is not an image I want in my head. I still don’t understand. How did any of this endear you to my mother?”

“She was having a liquid brunch with Myra, Sally and Cindy, and they heard what he said, and saw what happened after.”

“When you flirted with my father.”

“Please don’t call it flirting. It was kind of disgusting.” Harry shuddered. “But, honestly, it was quite funny. Given how homophobic he is I knew that having a male ex-prostitute make a pass would freak him out. At the very least it would trigger some outburst that he can’t schmooze his way out of, at the most it would shock him into doing something embarrassing.”

“And what did happen?”

“A combination of both. He couldn’t get away fast enough - he fell over! And with that damn stick of his, he couldn’t get up without help or risk losing his cover. There were a few slurs and rude comments but I couldn’t stop laughing. Marnie found it hilarious, too. She was sure to get a few jabs in at Mac while he was down.”

Harry grins at the memory. Mac’s usual sly, smirking demeanour had fallen in his haste to put as much distance between himself and Harry as possible. Then his stick had connected with the step behind him, and he had tripped backwards to land painfully on his arse. Some unaware customers rushed to help the old man up, but Harry and the ladies who were far too tipsy for that early in the morning were cackling like witches. Harry only wished he had a picture of the glare Mac sent him as he was leaving; he would frame it and put on his mantlepiece to commemorate the day.

Marnie had thanked him for brightening her day, and admitted that she might have underestimated him. It seems that whoever can face up to Mac like that was held in high regard. Since that day, she was sure to smile and wave in the street, or pop in to the Loft and offer some sophisticated conversation. She even offered to have him over for dinner one Sunday when she realised that Harry was still excluded from his own family dinners. She had appointed herself his second mother, and extended to pestering her own son about why he wasn’t dating him already.

“Well, I guess that makes sense.”

“How did Marnie not tell you already?”

“My guess is she didn’t think I’d take it well knowing you had seduced my father, even if it was to humiliate him. I still don’t like it. I should wash my brain out with soap.”

“I don’t know about soap, but alcohol might work.” Harry says as he refills James’ drink yet again.

After a moment in which James tries valiantly to drown out the image in his head and Harry goes to serve a newcomer, James focuses his sharp gaze on Harry again. “As much as the story clarifies a few things, are you going to get her to back off? It is rather annoying.”

“And what makes you think I have any control over Marnie Nightingale?”

“Because you’re her new favourite. At this rate I might have to marry you to get her to shut up.” James drinks to hide the blush at his own statement. Harry does nothing to hide his own expression.

“I’m not that easy. You’ll have to ask me out on a date first.”

“… Will you go on a date with me, Harry Thompson?” James asks softly, watching Harry melt and smile like an idiot.

“Of course, I will.”


	2. Tessie Thompson

“My mum asked about you again. I know we agreed to put off you meeting her, but it might just be better to get it over with.”

Harry flops down on the sofa next to James, who immediately wraps his arm around his boyfriend. He’d just gotten off the phone with his mother, feigning a family emergency to end the call when she brought up meeting the man who had her son smitten. Soon, they’ll run out excuses and it will be impossible to avoid.

James looks up from his paperwork, his eyes tired after a long, hard day. He puts away his files, grateful for the chance to take a break, and turns all his attention to their dilemma. “Well, I stand by our decision. Dinner with parents and family never goes well, so why put ourselves through that again? Not even dinner with my mother went perfectly, and the two of your get along like a house on fire.”

“I know.” Harry sighs, cuddling up closer to James. “And dinner with my dad was pretty traumatising.”

Several weeks ago, before the couple had implemented their new ‘no family dinners’ rule, Harry and extended an olive branch to his father. He had cooked dinner side by side with his father, and it was almost like old times. The father-son banter and reminiscing about the good old days - no matter how sparse those days were - had been heart warming, and even tearful at times.

He had been able to spend a few moments with his siblings - all three of them, now - and it hit him just how much he missed them, and how much he had missed out on. For so long he had been absent form their lives, kicked out and exiled by his father. From that moment, he swore to step up. A teary grin split his face when Ant refused to go to the babysitter’s and give the adults some peace for dinner, though in the end he did let go of his big brother.

Diane had even been pleasant, avoiding all the taboo subjects with expert precision, and the more wine she drank the nicer she got. It was like old times. Harry had fostered the hope in his heart that this could go perfectly, and not they way it had in his nightmares.

It had all gone downhill when James had arrived after an arduous day at court, drained and exhausted and not in the mood to deal with the man who, in his opinion, constantly threw his son to the gutter. He and Tony have a history that goes far beyond Harry’s involvement, and neither man has forgiven the other for blackmail, betrayal and the pimping.

Harry tries not to place the blame for the disaster that followed on anyone that he loves, but they were all at fault. James’ abrasive attitude and snobby remarks about Tony’s food and cutlery and manners; Diane’s alcohol induced loose tongue; Tony’s inability to forgive and forget the way Harry has; Harry’s own tendency to say things he doesn’t mean, and not think his words through entirely.

It was like a scene from Hell. James shooting cutting remarks left and right about parenting and bad businesses, Tony reprimanding Harry for ever choosing to be with James after everything he’s done, Diane making things worse by bringing up more incidents from the past, and Harry trying to placate everyone but making things worse just like Diane. And the thing that set off the powder keg? Ste. Diane brought up the local gossip of Ste and his new love interest, and Tony had started ranting.

The night had almost ended in thrown glasses and punches, but Harry and James had left before either could start the violence. Since then, harry’s contact with his family was limited to playing with his siblings and curt nods and conversations with his dad. James would be no where to be seen.

“I’m not a fan of the family that I know, Harry, I don’t think I’ll take well to the mother who kept you away from your father for eight years and has missed your last four birthdays and Christmases. She didn’t even come to your aid when you were in prison.” James’ lip curls and he shudders at the thought of the terrible time in both of their lives. Neither of them like to think about their stints behind bars.

“And I’ve forgiven her for that. This is my new start in life - new job, new flat, new relationships. That includes a new start for me and my mum. And she’s making an effort now. How many times has Marnie let you down and you’ve forgiven her? I just don’t want to be dragged down by the past.”

“I take it that means you want to go to dinner with her?”

“We won’t cook, and it’ll be in a public place, and we’ll limit the alcohol consumption to one glass. Please, James?”

“We tried that with my family, and that still went badly.”

“Because Romeo persuaded you to invite Juliet and we underestimated how protective she is of him. They’ve both been without a father figure, or a reliable mother, for that matter, for their whole lives - all they’ve had is each other. Of course they’re going to be hostile.”

“It wasn’t just Juliet. My mother riled everyone up.”

“Next time will be easier.”

“Next time?”

“We’ve got over all the awkwardness now, it’ll be smoother the more times we do it. Once everyone airs their grievances, this will be fine.”

“I will never understand your unbreakable optimism. How do you always see the best in people?”

“Be grateful that I do, else I would have listened to my dad and be five thousand miles away from you.” Harry shuffles closer to his boyfriend, their bodies pressed against each other, legs entwined. “So…. Dinner?”

“I guess we’ll have to do it sooner or later - the wedding reception can’t be the first time I meet your mother.”

Harry leans back, eyebrows raised a smile tugging at his lips. “Wedding reception, eh? You’ll have to propose to me first.”

“That can easily be arranged.”


End file.
